Afraid to Sleep Without You
by Shir0
Summary: Max-centric. Before he left, Max would always bravely step into the fray and take all the physical hurt for any of her family members. Now, she wonders how she can continue to live when all she had ever lived for is gone, with the intent to never return.


**Afraid to Sleep Without You**

**One-shot**

(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)

With a broken heart and a mind full of desire for one she considered a man, Maximum Ride sat with her knees pulled close to her chest. Her eyes stared inattentively at the fire burning in front of her, the crackles lashing out at her, but never causing any real damage. The slight burns to her callused fingers from the fire were nothing compared to the weight of an irrevocably shattered heart upon her chest. Annoyed at both her stubbornness and fragile heart, the girl had thrown a fit, much to the dismay of the flock, and she was maddened at the thought of him, as well as the reasons for his leaving.

He wasn't supposed to leave. He was family…possibly more, with the way her mind worked. He was her rock, her anchor to the real world, and she had irreversibly fallen in love with him. And to him, she was the only soft glimmering light to his eternal darkness. Without him, she now realized, she was nothing.

Like a phantom, he had been there by her side at all times, for the most part, and been able to help her up when needed. Even though they had fought much more than they had made peace with each other and had a steady conversation, she knew his good intentions and had a deep trust in him. Now, unable to feel the warmth of his hands or the soft beat of his beautifully depressing dark wings, she felt as though she had no purpose in the world and needed no reason to continue living.

As experiments, they were all going to die one day; much, much earlier than the average human, yet _he _had somehow come back to life. Unlike him, she would not have left if given the choice. Knowing herself, she would have fought to stay alive the very minute her death would come upon her, for the sake of keeping her flock – no, her family – together.

What difference did it make with her feelings in play? No matter what she wanted, he always had the ability to – and he would – make decisions without her. As the sort of "exception" to the flock, he knew that whatever he did, she could not get angry at for the simple act of free will was beyond her rules.

Her breath stilled and her eyelids slowly closed involuntarily, but she jerked her head up, snapping her eyes open before the blanket of sleep quietly swept over her. The cold feeling that someone was watching her with the intent to hurt her invaded left her thoughts, briefly pulling her away from her previous contemplations. Soon, the anger, but oddly calming fantasies about him filled her head like they used to.

Even with the push and pull of rage and serenity seated in her mind and heart, she could not deny one fact.

_I'm scared, Fang, I admit it. I'm really scared. I'm too afraid to sleep without you. I think I need you._

As the natural necessity for sleep called for her, she could no longer hold her eyes open, and she drifted away into the realm of dreams, hoping that one day the man she loved would keep his promise and hold her the same way he used to, with his soft hands and the loving tenderness of his warm body engulfing hers. The simple thought of the fallen angel shrouded in darkness spreading his wings triggered her heart to pound rapidly against her chest, and yet, hatred still seeped from her skin – the root being the soft whisper of how her heart was destroyed.

With her eyes finally shut and her breath completely calmed, Maximum Ride fell into a deep sleep, but not before whispering a last, faint plea to a lost cause: one named Fang.

_But I have to sleep…even if you're not here with me…_

(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)

"_If we go down, we go down together: 'best friends means, well, best friends means…'_

…_Wearing your black eye like a badge of honor, soaking in sympathy from friends who never loved you nearly half as much as me._

…_All I did was what I had to. Don't believe me when I tell you, 'It's just what anyone would do.' Take the time to talk about it. Think a lot and live without it. Don't believe me when I tell you, 'It's something unforgivable.'_

…_You never knew, well, I never told you. Everything I know about breaking hearts, I learned from you, it's true._

…'_Best friends' means I pulled the trigger. 'Best friends' means you get what you deserve."_

** There's No 'I' In Team **– _Taking Back Sunday_

(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)(X)

Hope you liked it. I have no idea where this came from. I've never…actually read Fang or Angel. I just know what generally happens in the story through a friend of mine, so I'm sorry if this contradicts anything. (I really didn't want to read it after what I heard happened.) If so, just tell me in a review and I could fix it up. I think it's OOC. How about you?

I think I shouldn't have put the song-quote, but I felt like this song especially hit their emotions on the head. This one is actually a rather big exception to the song-quotes I add in to stories. I would only do one to three lines of a song, with this being a rare exception, and they would all normally be lines right next to each other. (The song following this on my shuffled iTunes was _Mad World _from Donnie Darko. I nearly gagged at the irony...)

Please review.

~anime-heroine

(Special thanks to "Fluffy Bunnies Are So Cute" for the beta!)


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